How to Succeed In Business in a New World

    I found myself bathed in a luminous glow and an all encompassing warmth, my whole body tingled as if blood was returning to a limb that had fallen asleep. Before I knew it my life was flashing before my eyes, it had been doing that a lot lately. It didn't take too much thought to put two and two together to come up with the fact that I had died. I still had my body so I doubt that this was some sort of soul vacuum where you go for eternity after you die or before you’re born. Was it that this is Limbo or Purgatory? It was funny to think that everyone down on Earth would still be debating whether there was an afterlife or not but here I was with all the answers. I knew something that all the greatest philosophers never knew for certain in their entire lives. It was like now I was in on an inside joke with the billions of other people that had already died. Maybe I was just thinking about this to avoid having to actually watch my life flash before my eyes again with these faux existential thoughts. It was really rather boring to watch at this point, but that was probably my own fault for not living a very eventful life. The majority of it was me sitting around by myself. The near entirety of my solitary days were spent reading books and manga, watching anime, and playing games. I was a shut-in loser through and through. I was never really bullied or anything, I was just socially isolated until I thought that’s what I wanted. I was content with my life, content really was the right word for it. I wasn’t dying for another chance but I did my fair share of aspirations. I think it’s only human to have some delusions of grandeur but for me they were just a little more delusional. Something that was somewhat ironic about reviewing my whole life was the fact that I couldn’t remember how or why I died. Of course I was a bit curious about it but I couldn’t find any clues from investigating my body. I wasn’t maimed or mangled or anything so major accidents didn’t seem likely, no bones breaking skin or limbs bending the wrong way. Poisoning was a possibility I suppose but I didn’t really have any interaction with anyone who would have done it so unless I started drinking from the bottles under the sink it didn’t seem likely. I had thought about suicide in the past but I don’t think I actually did it, I like I said I was content with my life it wouldn’t make any sense for me to throw it away. Natural causes seemed most probable, after all I wasn’t the healthiest person around. Just from a look at me you can tell I was a shut in and didn’t put much effort into taking care of myself. I was immediately identifiable as someone that never left the house, my build was scrawny, my skin was pasty, and I didn’t have much to any stamina to speak of. But aside from my general and established mishealth there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with me, all my organs felt fine at least how I imagined they should feel in some sort of suspended animation afterlife. My bodily fluids seemed to be behaving themselves and not dripping out of anything. Of course it is also somewhat likely that I would be returned to some previous backup version, after all if I had been decapitated or liquified into a slurry how would this be playing out? It was also just literally morbid curiosity that fueled me, it’s not like I could find an antihistamine somewhere around here and resurrect myself. As my scar scavenger hunt was winding down I started to hear a dull and warbling noise. My initial hypothesis was that in the sensory desert I had started to hear my own heart beat and blood flow but as I strained my ears in the direction I thought it was coming from I could make out that it was a voice. “Oh I’m so sorry it had to happen so soon.” It was a feminine voice with a forlorn tone, you could tell just from how she said it that she was pouting. I wasn’t really too surprised that it was a woman speaking to me, even though most people talk about god being a male I always sort of doubted that he’d be the one welcoming you at the gate, if this was the waiting room to the afterlife then this was the receptionist. But she wasn’t asking me if I had an appointment instead she seemed to be fawning over me. “I almost couldn’t believe it when I heard.” On the other hand maybe this was my guardian angel, but if that’s the case then I would have a few choice words for her, namely regarding the part where I’m dead now. How good of a job could she be doing if I ended up here, especially since it looked like she was surprised I ended up here. “I do want to bring you back as a small sort of compensation.” So okay even if she wasn’t fantastic at the guarding part she was at least still trying to look after me. “Okay, that sounds good.” I fully realized how blase I was being about a matter of literally my own life and death but I didn’t really know how to respond to this deific figure. “Very well, of course I can’t bring you back into the same world, your death has already affected too much…” She had a profound melancholy in her voice but that didn’t do much to placate me, that really sounded like the type of thing that I should have been told about before I agreed to it. But considering it further I think I could really be fine regardless of how and where I get brought back unless I was gonna be an amoeba or in a lava world. “It will of course resemble one that you are familiar with.” That told me that it wouldn’t be a lava world which told me all I needed to know. One of the few things I would call myself excellent at is my ability to adapt to new environments, even if I usually do so by finding a way to blend into the background of my said new environment. My life had been trouble free and uneventful and I largely owed it to never rocking the boat. At the same time though, maybe a new life would be the kick in the pants that I would need to do something significant with my life, it’d be nice to become a major player in this new world, at least to prove to myself that I could actually do it. I nodded generally to tell the disembodied voice that I was generally accepting of the proposal. From here it wasn’t long until the light grew to an almost blinding degree and the warmth grew, all accompanied by a high pitched whine that grew more and more intense. This is it, I was on my way to a place, a new world, my new life…